Boon Café at Jarern Chai Grocer

Asian sandwiches - an oxymoron? Far from it. But there's a new sheriff in town, and it's an Australian exclusive.

Pioneering Sydney group Chat Thai has expanded into the grocery market, taking over a large tenancy around the corner from its Haymarket HQ. The unique selling point at its in-house eatery, Boon Café, is Thai sandwiches.

All the sandwiches are available as rice bowls at lunch, alongside equally unorthodox offers such as a Thai take on spaghettini with crab and tomato amped up with smoked chilli. At breakfast (served till 11), the options run from pasture-raised bacon to house-made chicken liver pâté with your eggs, and from jam or peanut butter to red-tea custard with your toast. Dinner is served till midnight, taking in Isaan-style grills, sour-spicy chicken-foot broth, a nam tok made with skirt steak and a salad of ant eggs, shallots and roasted rice.

"We're trying to find a middle ground that complements the lifestyle we like - eating well, eating organic, eating fresh - with stuff that the Thai populace in the area expects," says Anderson.